How heavy are the pieces of silver? How hard will it be to return them?

The Resurrection of Nunzio chronicles a successful Westport lawyer's obstacle-strewn road to personal redemption. Having lived the proverbial lie for forty years, Barnabas Wilson desperately wants to reclaim his identity from behind the dense curtain of a counterfeit name. Victimized by prejudice and misguided humor while in the army, Wilson adopted his Waspy, socially acceptable name to advance his career as a Westport, Connecticut lawyer. Now, accomplished and wealthy, he decides to reassume his birth name. What would seem like a simple legal matter, however, is hampered by a partner's misconduct, his wife's mental illness and the painful betrayal of a lifelong friend, his wife's psychiatrist. Nevertheless, in his late sixties, dogged by a guilty conscience and his wise, aged mother, he struggles for the freedom only truth will provide by resuming his real name: Nunzio Bartolomeo Marinetti.

The author studied music at the Juilliard School in New York City before Dartmouth College and law school at Yale. His artistic leanings languished, however, while he practiced commercial and matrimonial law for many years in Connecticut and New York. Emerging from the shrouds of too much reality, what was once music developed into the production of fiction. The Resurrection of Nunzio, his first novel, chronicles a Westport lawyer's arduous and twisted road to personal redemption. Other works, Secrets of Dresden Hall and Gargoyles and Mirrors, are in the final stages of editing. Divorced, Mr. Manero is the father of two grown children. He presently lives and works in southern Connecticut, a fertile locale for the complex social and psychological themes, which ceaselessly provoke his interest and find their way into his work.

"Are you nuts? What you're doing is blackmail, pure and simple. There are no ethical considerations in your favor here, they're all against you. You're being unfair, Mario, viciously unfair."

Brancatto stepped forward, jutting his narrow, movie star nose to within inches of the shorter man's forehead. "Unfair, Barney?" The look in his eyes was cruel and hard. "You have the unmitigated f---ing gall to tell me what you think is unfair?" Brancatto's anger was controlled and concentrated. Without mincing words, he came right to the point with the clear and painful truth. Wilson, bathed in the light of his life's worst mistake, shuddered. "Were you fair to me twenty years ago when I needed a job? I was just a kid about to get married, just starting out. And, now, today, you have the balls to tell me you think I'm unfair?"

Wilson, his advantage destroyed, looked away from his accuser, his indictment both real and justified.

"Look, Barney, I know who you are. I may not know your real name, your ethnic surname, but I know who you are." Brancatto's eyes seethed with hatred and unforgiveness, his words striking Wilson like blows. "You see, my good pisano, at best you are an older edition of me. That means, my friend, if I'm a wop, then so are you."

Flashing bright lights went off in his head and Barney Wilson disappeared. With his powerful left hand, Nunzio Marinetti grabbed Liam O'Bannion's right arm with a vice-like grip, Nunzio's right hand a hammer fist at the end of a lethally cocked right arm. But, then, before the punch was thrown, Theresa Cunningham screamed: "No, no, no . . . please, Nunzio, no!"

Brancatto, making no effort to ward off the threatened blow, stood his ground. "Go ahead, Barney," he said, emotionless, "hit me. Do it. Hit me." A second passed, and then he added: "Blind me, too."

Beads of perspiration formed at the temples of Barney Wilson who quickly reappeared, shaken and pale. He released Brancatto's arm and unclenched his fist while the shrill soprano voice of Theresa Cunningham faded into the distance. "No, Nunzio, please ... no, no, no . . . no . . ." He thought he heard the far off sounds of rustling chairs and closing doors as colors spiraled before his eyes and time stood still.